Former Chinese banker Lin Jin sues Canada to halt tax probe, retracting claim of residency after auditors seek foreign asset details
- Lin Jin moved to Vancouver in 2006 and owns three properties in Canada, but says she ‘incorrectly identified’ herself as a Canadian resident on tax returns
- In a lawsuit, she says she returned to live in China, and Canada’s tax collectors are overstepping by seeking details about her foreign assets
For six years, former Chinese banker Lin Jin filed her income taxes as a resident of Canada, having obtained her Canadian citizenship “for reasons of convenience and personal preference” in 2011.
But now, in the midst of an audit by the Canada Revenue Agency, she claims it was all a mistake.
Lin Jin’s case, laid out in a legal bid to prevent tax collectors pursuing details of her foreign assets, helps illustrate the challenges posed by the phenomenon of reverse migration among wealthy Chinese in Canada.
Lin Jin said she actually moved back to Wuhan in China’s Hubei province in June 2010 after a four-year stint living in Vancouver to be with her husband and children, and should not be considered a tax resident of Canada, and is taking the Canadian government to court to prove just that.
On November 14, she filed an application in the Federal Court naming Canada’s attorney general as a respondent, claiming the Canada’s tax authority was overstepping its bounds by seeking detailed information about her foreign assets.